Surveys on marine litter on the coasts
of the Northwest Pacific region
Objectives:
The NOWPAP region is a semi-enclosed sea area surrounded by the countries
of China, Japan, Korea and Russia. The NOWPAP region is providing important
fishery resources and supporting range of recreational activities for its
many coastal residents.
In recent years the pristine and healthy environment of the NOWPAP region has come under increasing threat from the presence of a variety of marine litters, which are a source of pollution and ultimately lead to the degradation of coastal and marine ecosystems. In particular, the pollution of the marine environment by plastic debris is a major problem as plastics are slow to decompose and, due to their buoyancy, may be dispersed over large distances. Plastics make-up the largest portion of the marine litters and are a common and major source of marine pollution worldwide. For the reason, pollution by plastic litter has been raised as one of the major transboundary environmental issues in the Northwest Pacific Action Plan (NOWPAP).
In recognition of these problems, the Northwest Pacific Region Environmental Cooperation Center (NPEC) has been conducting marine litter survey in the NOWPAP region since 1996. The objectives of these surveys are to understand the status of marine litter pollution as well as to build strong partnerships and cooperation with the local coastal governments.
NPEC will continue the marine litter surveys with the additional goal of enhancing the awareness of people on the impact of littering of marine ecosystems and of the importance of marine environmental conservation. The information obtained through the surveys will provide valuable reference when planning waste management as well as coastal and fishing ground conservation.
Summary of survey
The first survey was conducted by 10 Japanese local governments,
the number of participating governments has gradually expanded to now include
all of the Japanese coastal governments within the NOWPAP region, as well
as local governments from China, Korea and Russia.
Figure 2 The number of participating local governments, surveyed beaches
and participants have increased since 1996. From 2005, NPEC started marine
litter survey in the Pacific coast (7 sites), the number of participants
was increased rapidly.
Figure 1 In the FY 2007 survey a total of 36 local governments (China: 4, Japan: 27, Korea: 3, Russia: 2) and many NGOs/NPOs participated in the surveying of a total of 83 beaches.
The total number and weight of collected marine litter are 854,747 pieces
and 8,827 kg in the monitoring survey of NPEC (1996-2007).
Figure 3 Total number and weight of collected marine litter from 2003 to
2007.
